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The Death Wager (II)

© Francois Tremblay

Pascal's Wager, therefore, is a surprisingly cynical way for believers to analyze their motivations for belief. Do they really hold a belief, surrender their minds and their meaning, purely out of pragmatic calculation ? Of course, they want the atheist to hold such a low standard, perhaps equating scientific thought to mere number-pushing, or perhaps they are really that careless with their own lives. Either way, it does not speak well of the average Christian's honesty, especially in the face of an omniscient god who "knows their hearts".

It is perhaps another cynical comment on the part of Christians that their Wager is really about death. Christianity is a religion of death : founded on animal sacrifice and its replacement, the death of "Jesus", imposes a burden of guilt on man's natural instincts, demands execution for many sins, demands the death of man to the "world", and makes man's death the sole motivation for salvation.

Christianity, therefore, is not an ideology that affirms life, but rather that demeans and destroys it. It is, in the most profound way, "anti-life", more than murder itself, which at least affirms the murderer, if anything.

So let's strip down Pascal's Wager to its core, and call this the Death Wager : if there is a chance of gaining "eternal life" at the expense of our material life, then we should take it, otherwise we will surely die.

So we are taking a bet again, but without the "God" rhetoric. But what are we to make of the idea that "the world" is but an obstacle to our "eternal life", and that our material desires should be sacrificed in its name ? If this "eternal life" is not part of our life, then what does it matter ? Why should we care ?

My life, here on Earth, is not helped by the belief that my "soul" persists after death : I am not a soul, and my life is not the life of a soul. It is the life of a material, human being, in a material, human-shaped world.

Some Christians argue that this life is "just a test". Any reasonable person should reject this notion as totally abhorrent. The suffering of an infant afflicted with cystic fibrosis is not "just a test". The horrible but mercifully short suffering of people infected with hot viruses is not "just a test". The senseless mutilations and deaths of war are not "just tests".